To make up for the last post, here is the one with lots of pictures!

The past few weeks have been really crazy. As mentioned, I went through ATV training, which was a lot of fun! I've driven them a few times before, but it was good to have a refresher for this summer.  Other than that, I've generally been working with our plovers and oystercatchers. The first chicks are finally beginning to hatch!

here is the first American oystercatcher chick!

The plovers are a little late, but we're expecting chicks any day now, too.

A \piping plover nest

An exclosure, the fence we set up to keep out predators and people

 On the weekends, I've been volunteering to help a gentleman that bands birds - we capture them in mist nets (a special net with a very fine mesh designed to not hurt the birds), take them to our little station, put a band on the leg, and record information like species, wing and tail length, weight, sex, etc. Then we let them go! It's very fun.

Holding a yellow warbler

Carolina chickadee!

female orchard oriole (this was a tricky one to identify!)

female white-eyed vireo, looking pretty angry...

this is a yellow-shafted flicker, a type of woodpecker. Here's the man showing off the yellow!

here's a diamondback terrapin we found on the beach

his pretty shell :)

It's pretty great working here. Even though half of us interns work on the beach all day, every day, now that the weather is nicer we've been going to the beach in our spare time, too!